Web Accessibility Fears and Ways to Conquer Them

In The Fear of Making Web Sites Accessible, I asked you what held you back from improving your site’s accessibility. I received many excellent responses in the comment section, and I do hope you can check it out if you haven’t done so.

Here, I’ve compiled five fears which I’ve heard from people over the months and have included the ways to overcome them. You may or may not have these fears, but I can assure you that you’ll find something of interest in the discussions below.

The Niche-Related Web Accessibility Fear

“I fear that no person with disability would benefit if I do make my site accessible, because I think the niche of my site doesn't cater to the disabled in general.”

No matter what your site’s niche is, there is still a chance that persons with disabilities would visit it. Let us say you own a site about motorcycle parts. At first glance, you might think that no one in the disabled community would want to learn about motorcycle engines, filters, or tires.

On the contrary, there may be a person with a disability who owns a business. This person may want to learn about these pieces of equipment and is willing to purchase them from your site.

Also, there might be a blind or visually impaired person out there who wishes to buy a motorcycle for a family member or friend. You’d be doing these people a great service if you made it easier for them to access information in your site.

The Fear of Losing Existing Visitors

“I’m afraid that making my site accessible would attract persons with disabilities but may somehow discourage existing non-disabled visitors from visiting the site.”

If you make your site accessible, you’d be helping both disabled and non-disabled visitors. A good part of web accessibility is related to the usability of a site. An organized structure, for instance, makes a site accessible and usable. It helps users of assistive technology in quickly understanding the page’s structure. Similarly, an organized structure lets non-disabled visitors find at once the information they need.

The above example, among other things, shows that there is little or no chance that accessibility-related changes can discourage existing visitors from visiting the site. Through this task, you may even show to all your visitors that you care enough to take the time for improving an aspect of your web site.

Once you have made the changes, you may want to talk about them in one of your posts. You can mention that the changes are focused on making your site accessible for persons with disabilities, but they are also made to provide a better browsing experience to everyone.

The Fear of Compromising Quality

“I fear that I have to compromise on the quality of visual and audio information if I want to make my site accessible.”

Accessibility does not involve making a compromise on the quality of the content of your site. You can make a web site very accessible, and still keep the quality and attractiveness of its content.

The main idea here is to first decide what you want to create. After you’ve identified the content you want to have, you can determine the means of making it accessible.

You can make your site as colorful and as visually appealing as possible, as long as you provide textual descriptions for non-textual content. Also, you can have audio and video contents in your site, as long as you provide captioning or transcripts for them.

The Fear of Making Mistakes

“I’m afraid I don't know much about people with disabilities. I would like to create a good site, but I am not sure if I would do the right thing.”

It is true that learning about people with disabilities lets you understand better the concept of web accessibility. But it is certainly not difficult to learn about them and how they use the Internet. Through the online resources such as those in this site, you may even find that it is a real eye-opener to know the visitors of your site that have disabilities. I have also posted a series of articles about this topic.

And don’t worry about whether or not you’ll do the right thing. One of the beauties of web accessibility is that you can always modify and improve your pages. Like any other web-based practice, web accessibility may involve a number of trials and changes before you can do it right.

I can assure you though that the results are definitely rewarding once you have managed to enhance your site’s accessibility. To help you along the way, I have set up a tutorial on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

The Fear of Starting Over Again

“I’ve tried to make my site accessible. But I’m afraid of continuing it because when Section 508 or WCAG gets updated, I’d have to start over again.”

First of all, if you are having this specific concern, I personally want to commend you for your efforts. Second, you are right that accessibility standards get updated once in a few years.

However, the groups responsible for the updates always try to provide detailed explanations regarding the changes in the modified standards and guidelines. And normally the new standards are built on the principles of the previous ones. So instead of starting over again, you only have to do a number of changes to meet the new standards.

I always keep a close look at the updates made to Section 508, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), and other accessibility standards. So if you ever find the updates to be too complex, I’d be glad to help you in ensuring that your site meets these new standards.

If you have any other web accessibility fears, please feel free to add them in the comments section below. I’ll do my best to help you with them.